Pacify
by nightwalker3
Summary: Marco doesn't know how to deal with watching Rachel watch her best friend die. An Animorphs/Zombie!Apocalypse.


**Notes:** This story contains references to things that some readers may feel uncomfortable with (suicide, assisted suicide).

**Disclaimers:** _Animorphs_ and all related characters are the property of KA Applegate.

This was written as part of the _Five Fandoms That Ended in Zombie Apocalypse_ challenge.

* * *

**Pacify**

* * *

"This isn't- This shouldn't be _possible_."

Rachel was pale and shocky looking as she stood by the two-way mirror, one hand against her mouth, the other clenched in a fist against the glass. "This isn't – She wasn't _bitten_."

No one wanted to say anything. Rachel'd been known to kill the messenger and most of the nurses on the ward fled as soon as she arrived. The guards were still and silent, maintaining a careful watch on her. Jake had prepped them himself. He probably hadn't specifically said Rachel might try to break Cassie out, but he had almost certainly implied it.

If Tobias were there, this might go better, but Tobias was on patrol and Jake was in Command, debriefing the General on the new contamination threat and that meant Marco got to be down here watching Rachel watch her best friend die.

The intercom was off, at Marco's request, so they couldn't actually hear Cassie screaming, but they could see her writhe on the bed. Her body arched up against the restraints until she was practically supporting her weight on her heels and the back of her head. Her mouth was wide open and Marco thought he could see the force of the scream in the way the tendons in her neck strained and her eyes bulged.

"She's _medical_," Rachel said. "How did she even get close to a Zed?"

"She didn't," Marco said. "There was a civilian infected. Cassie was sedating him."

"And he bit her? Before the infection took hold?" Rachel doesn't take her eyes away from the screaming woman in the next room. "That's not how it works. Was it some sick fuck _trying_ to infect Cassie?"

"It was a little kid. Maybe six? I dunno. Little." He'd been short enough he hadn't even come up to Marco's waist, with golden brown curls and light brown skin. If he'd gotten the chance to grow up, he would have been beautiful. "Cassie sedated him and the pacifiers put him out of his misery."

"A kid?" Rachel pulled her gaze away long enough to pin Marco in a narrow glare. "Little kids bite people sometimes. Jordan once bit Sarah bad enough to need stitches over a Buzz Lightyear doll."

"He didn't bite her." The kid had been too busy crying to bite anyone and he'd clung to Marco's hand with a desperate strength as Cassie gave him the shot that would put him to sleep so the pacifiers could do the rest.

"Marco," Rachel said. "If you don't answer my question in a minute I'm going to beat it out of you."

The guards shifted position ever so slightly, enough to make Rachel drag in a deep breath and turn away from him to rest her forehead against the window. "I didn't _mean_ that," she snapped.

She really had, but Marco didn't feel the need to let the guards know. It wasn't the first time Rachel had threatened to deck him one. Hell, it wouldn't have been the first time she'd followed through, though he liked to think he'd deserved it more the last time she'd punched him. "She acquired him."

Silence rang through the room, huge and hollow and Marco had to force himself not to hunch his shoulders against Rachel's reaction. Even the guards were motionless and silent, staring straight ahead at the wall behind Marco and not so much as glancing at Rachel.

"She-"

You don't acquire humans. It was just common courtesy. It was also the law. A morph-capable who didn't get consent found themselves brought up on charges of theft, fraud and assault. Depending on the means of acquirement and the situation the victim was left in – not to mention what you did with the morph you acquired – the charges could only get worse.

Aside from the legal implications, Cassie had been adamantly opposed to acquiring human morphs. She'd been one of the people to help draft the bill that made it illegal.

"A little kid?" Rachel asked over her shoulder.

"I don't know why," Marco said. "It was just – the kid was crying and Cassie gave him a hug. Then she told him he'd feel better after he took a nap and she gave him the sedative. I didn't realize what she was doing at first."

She'd taken her gloves off to pick the boy up and hand him to the pacifiers. Picking him up was weird – the pacifiers usually took patients away on stretches or gurneys but the kid had been so damn little, Marco figured Cassie just wanted to be… Christ. Gentle or something. Careful of him. But then he'd seen her gloves were gone and he saw the way her eyes went blank and distant, just for a second, just long enough for her hand to brush the kid's cheek, just long enough to acquire the DNA of some poor, doomed little kid.

"I turned her in to the MPs," Marco admitted.

Rachel scrubbed a hand over her eyes. "If you're expecting me to get mad about that you can suck it."

He hadn't really expected it, but he wouldn't have blamed her if she had wanted to seize onto the opportunity to blame someone for something. They've all been each other's scapegoats at one time or another. "I didn't have much choice."

The infection spread in less than three days from a small bite or infected blood entering a minor wound. Larger bites, or larger amounts of blood contamination spread faster. Marco had seen infected turn in less than two minutes from mortal wounds. Cassie had taken that kid's DNA into her body. There hadn't been any way to know how that would play out. For all he'd known she was only minutes away from full-fledged infection.

The truth was worse, Marco thought as he watched Cassie shriek and struggle on the other side of the glass. He really wished it had just killed her.

"Why didn't they pacify her?" Rachel asked.

"Because she's not dying."

"She looks like she's dying."

"Remember when you got sick? Way back when we first learned to morph. And the elephant just kind of dragged itself out of you without you making the decision to morph?"

Comprehension didn't dawn on Rachel's face so much as it kicked her in the teeth. Her face went completely white and Marco braced himself to catch her if she started to pass out.

She didn't faint. He wasn't really surprised.

"The- the kid's morph is-" Rachel made a gesture that didn't really relate anything, but Marco nodded anyway.

"The infected DNA is trying to form. We don't know yet if it's the little kid's body or if it's just pushing through Cassie's own DNA. No one's ever seen this before."

No morph-capable had ever acquired one of the infected – and since they were recording what happened to Cassie, probably none would again after this.

"What's going to happen?"

Marco risked stepping up beside her so they stood side-by-side, watching Cassie through the glass. "There was a chance she could control it. That's why no one pacified her right away. If the infection stayed in her blood like any other morph, then there wasn't an immediate threat." She would never have set foot among other humans again, but she would have been alive. Quarantined in a military base somewhere, allowed to continue research, or possibly work with animals. Marco didn't think it was much of a life, but he didn't know how Cassie would have felt about it. The two of them rarely managed to read each other with any kind of success. "But she can't control it. The infection is controlling the morph. She'll lose it soon."

"Does she know what's happening to her?"

"Yeah. She was a lot more coherent before. It's getting worse."

"They're going to pacify her, aren't they?"

It wasn't an accusation, it was a request. Marco could understand that.

"I promise. Jake's making sure of it now."

Rachel leaned against the glass and wrapped her arms around herself. "Why did she acquire that sick kid?"

Marco honestly didn't know. He and Cassie operated from opposite sides of just about every equation and had for as long as they'd known each other. It was probably the biggest reason, including the Jake thing, that they'd never been friends. "I think she got tired of putting people to sleep so they could be killed without a struggle. I think she got tired of a world full of sick people who were never getting better. I think she thought she was atoning for something. Don't ask me what she was thinking. I have no damn idea."

The door opened behind them and Jake was there, tired and drawn but somehow still managing to be comforting. He stood between them and wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders. "You guys can go if you want," he said to the guards in a quiet voice, and they took their leave with the same silence they had maintained during the watch.

The door on the far side of Cassie's room opened and a pacifier team filed into the room. Six men – well, one looked like it might be a woman, but it wasn't always easy to tell under all the armor they wore. Their hands were protected by thick gloves, their faces hidden behind reflective helmets that covered their entire heads. Five of them took up their places around the bed, holding Cassie down. Arms, legs, head.

In the field the pacifiers held the infected face down and either shot them in the back of the head or – if ammunition was running low – caved in the skull with a metal bat. In a controlled medical setting they chose a less violent means.

The sixth pacifier must have said something – it was impossible to tell with the helmet, but the other five moved in synch, grasping Cassie firmly and flipping her as smoothly as possible onto her stomach. She was screaming still, but Marco didn't think it had anything to do with what was about to happen.

The sixth pacifier held a slim metal spike in his hands. Marco had seen them before, even been taught how to use them, just in case. All it took was one move, if you did it right. Into the base of skull. Sever the spinal column, kill the infected.

Jake's fingers dug into Marco's shoulder. If Rachel said anything, Marco didn't hear.

One move.

And Cassie had the peace she'd given so many Infected.


End file.
